Fast Focus

The purpose of Fast Focus is to provide brief, single-topic summaries of important IRP conferences, publications, and events to keep readers up-to-date on our latest poverty research between issues of Focus. There will be no overlap of articles in Fast Focus and Focus; the content of each will be distinct but complementary.

This is a “green” initiative; we will not be printing or mailing hard copies of Fast Focus.

Notification and an abstract of each new issue of Fast Focus will be e-mailed to “IRPFocusAlert” listserv subscribers along with a link to the full issue on IRP’s Web site.

If you would like to receive notification and an abstract of new issues of Fast Focus, send an e-mail message to irpfocusalert-request@ssc.wisc.edu indicating “Subscribe" in the subject line.

Fast Focus No. 2–2009

March 2009

President Obama and antipoverty policy: What does the stimulus bill do to fight poverty, educate citizens, and improve public health?
Timothy Smeeding

Daniel R. Meyer, Professor of Social Work and IRP Affiliate, commented on the bill’s cash and noncash transfer programs, indicating that the stimulus bill represents both a continuation of thirty-year trends in policies affecting low-income families (such as providing work supports over aid to nonworkers) and some nontrivial increases in existing benefit-program outlays. Sara Goldrick-Rab, Assistant Professor of Education Policy Studies and Sociology, Scholar at the Wisconsin Center for Advancement of Postsecondary Education, and IRP Affiliate, spoke about aid to education in the bill, lauding the administration’s new emphasis on higher education as essential to escaping poverty, but also noting that more than half of the $100 billion earmarked for new education funding will go to keeping schools open. Pamela Herd, Assistant Professor of Public Affairs and Sociology and IRP Affiliate, talked about health and health care support, noting that about one-fifth of the stimulus is for broadly construed health and health care, about half of which is to keep the public health insurance system going, mainly through increased Medicaid funding. Herd noted that the broader context of President Obama’s health care plan is two-fold: expand coverage and control costs. Andrew Reschovsky, Professor of Public Affairs and Applied Economics, IRP Affiliate, and Affiliate of the Wisconsin Center for Advancement of Postsecondary Education, presented a synopsis of how the federal stimulus bill influenced the State of Wisconsin’s education budget, noting that federal stimulus funds will support poverty-related programs and special education, and that this budget has no increase in equalization aid, unlike in past years.

Fast Focus No. 1–2008

December 2008

A state of agents? Third-party governance and implications for human services and their delivery
Carolyn Heinrich

This brief concerns the increasing use of “agents of the state” (nongovernmental for-profit or nonprofit organizations) to provide and administer social service programs formerly handled by government, and it explores the implications of this practice, especially for vulnerable citizens. Third-party governance was the focus of an IRP conference held in summer 2008, and in this overview, conference organizer Carolyn Heinrich summarizes the proceedings and presents key insights from three of the conference papers that focus on social service delivery (affordable housing, foster care and family services, and mental health). The research efforts reveal that government exercises very limited oversight of agents of the state, yet the organizational structures and incentives that government establishes to promote service quality, efficiency, and effectiveness appear to weigh heavily on service outcomes. Government plays a far more vital and active role than just funding the services, even if it is not engaging directly in service provision. That role is essential for ensuring equity in access to services and improving service outcomes.